From the time I had seen them throw the beast upon the ground, I had rejoiced, thinking, that when three people were killing a cow, they must have agreed to sell part of her to us; and I was much disappointed upon hearing the Abyssinians say, that we were to pass the river to the other side, and not encamp where I intended. Upon my proposing they should bargain for part of the cow, my men answered what they had already learned in conversation, that they were not then to kill her, that she was not wholly theirs, and they could not sell her. This awakened my curiosity; I let my people go forward, and staid myself, till I saw, with the utmost astonishment, two pieces, thicker, and longer than our ordinary beef steaks, cut out of the higher part of the buttock of the beast. How it was done I cannot positively say, because judging the cow was to be killed from the moment I saw the knife drawn, I was not anxious to view that catastrophe, which was by no means an object of curiosity; whatever way it was done, it surely was adroitly, and the two pieces were spread upon the outside of one of their shields. One of them still continued holding the head, while the other two were busied in curing the wound. This too was done not in an ordinary manner; the skin which had covered the flesh that was taken away was left entire, and flapped over the wound, and was fastened to the corresponding part by two or more small skewers, or pins. Whether they had put any thing under the skin between that and the wounded flesh I know not, but at the river side where they were, they had prepared a cataplasm of clay, with which they covered the wound; they then forced the animal to rise, and drove it on before them, to furnish them with a fuller meal when they should meet their companions in the evening. I could not but admire a dinner so truly soldier-like, nor did I ever see so commodious a manner of carrying provisions along on the road as this was. I naturally attributed this to necessity, and the love of expedition. It was a liberty, to be sure, taken with Christianity; but what transgression is not warranted to a soldier when distressed by his enemy in the field? I could not as yet conceive that this was the ordinary banquet of citizens, and even of priests, throughout all this country. In the hospitable, humane house of Janni, these living feasts had never appeared. It is true we had seen raw meat, but no part of an animal torn from it with the blood. The first shocked us as uncommon, but the other as impious.